Letter: The Fruit of Congress 6/17/15

Recently I wrote a letter to the Naples Daily News on how the U.S. Congress exercised their freedom of religion and by doing so maintained a cooperative relationship between the church and state that carried on well into the twentieth century.

Letter: Higher authority

At the time the U.S. Constitution was framed, there were 55 members of Congress and virtually every one of them was a member of an orthodox Christian church. Some “fruits of their labor” — in 1800, Congress approved the Capitol to be used as a church building and by 1867 it was the largest church in Washington, D.C., with up to 2,000 attending weekly.

In 1864, by law, Congress added “In God We Trust” to American coinage. In 1931, Congress by law adopted the Star-Spangled Banner as the official National Anthem, with its phrase, “this be our motto, ‘In God is our trust!’” In 1954, Congress, by law, added the phrase “one nation under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Were not the founders aware that they were in violation of the “wall” of separation between church and state? Quite frankly, the “wall” myth has grown tiresome and should be explicitly abandoned.

According to the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of today’s members of Congress profess to be Christians. In regards to the “fruit” hanging on their tree, it is rotten and if you dig down and examine the roots you would see nothing but the decaying of our First Amendment rights.

Our representatives need to be reminded of the oath they took under Article IV, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government.” That means, in America’s republic, they should recognize an authority higher than themselves and the people as the source of our laws.